Join us for OpenCon 2015, wherever you are

Today, we’re announcing “OpenCon 2015 Live” which will allow anyone to join OpenCon 2015 from anywhere as a virtual participant. You can RSVP to join us at: opencon2015.org/opencon_2015_live

OpenCon 2015 brings together leading student and early career academic professionals from around the world to learn, network and advance Open Access, Open Data and Open Education. Through our network of satellite events, we bring together hundreds more through dozens of events around the world. However, we know that for thousands who apply, attending an event still isn’t possible.

That’s why this year we’re happy announce “OpenCon 2015 Live”, an experiment enabling people to participate virtually in OpenCon 2015 in a meaningful way. People who attend OpenCon 2015 in person are expected to learn, build their network, and take action, and we want to enable the same for virtual participants. We’ll do this in some of the following ways:

Learn: OpenCon 2015 will have world class speakers and a high-quality live stream, enabling attendees to watch sessions in real time. There will also be a virtual pre-conference of webcasts bringing all participants (in-person and virtual) up-to date with the issues.

Network: During OpenCon 2015, we’ll provide a conference line throughout the meeting enabling virtual participants to join others to discuss session topics, ideas and projects. At points during the meeting, we’ll invite speakers and participants from the in-person meeting to join the call.

Act: Virtual participants will be able to take part in OpenCon’s unconference, ask questions, join discussions, and help summarise and write about sessions much like attendees at the meeting.

Upon request, virtual participants are eligible to receive official certificates of participation once feedback on participation is provided.

More details will be released as the meeting approaches and as we get community feedback. This initiative builds on our year round community work, which includes an active discussion list, monthly calls, and monthly webcasts.